A Press Corps on the Lege, 5/27/2005 - The Texas Observer

A Press Corps on the Lege, 5/27/2005 - The Texas Observer: "I reported on my first session of the Texas Legislature in 1963, as a reporter for The Daily Texan, the student newspaper at The University of Texas-Austin. Since then, there have been a lot of changes, not only in the Legislature, but in the way the media covers it.

Back then, there were no laws requiring open meetings and open records. A lot was done in secret. The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, an old ex-alcoholic curmudgeon from Paducah named Bill Heatly, worked out the appropriations bill with a few cronies. They dropped the phone-book-size budget on everyone’s desk a couple of days before the end of the 140-day session. Legislators had a few hours to try to figure out what was in it—and what wasn’t."